It was Saturday. Juniper sat at her desk, looking through a physics book. She marveled at the equations and numbers that could somehow describe the whole world. Soft and relaxing music played on her speakers, like always. Her heart felt quiet and free from thoughts of basketball and missed shots.
Juniper’s sister, Rose, was home from college. She lounged on Juniper’s floral bedspread.
Rose tossed a basketball from one hand to the other. The slapping sound of the ball comforted both sisters. “Sorry I missed your game, Shorty,” she said.
Juniper rolled her eyes and spun her desk chair around. Rose was actually shorter than Juniper by an inch or two. And counting.
“You didn’t miss much,” Juniper said. “I totally choked. And Dad was not happy with me.”
“Oh yeah? He was always rough on me too,” Rose said. “But only because he cared.” Rose made air quotes with her fingers around the word cared.
Juniper snorted.
“Just try to make it through the year without quitting or hating him too much,” Rose said. She sat up in the bed and tossed the ball to Juniper.
Juniper caught it and passed it back.
“You’re tough,” said Rose. “You’ll make it.”
The girls heard the sound of their father’s feet clomping down the hallway.
Rose hopped up from the bed. “I’ll check you later, Shorty,” she said. “Have fun doing the million drills I’m sure Dad has planned for you today.”
Juniper groaned. Rose took the ball and faked a pass at Juniper and then at their dad as he stepped into Juniper’s doorway. His enormous frame filled the space.
“Juniper, get your head out of that book,” he said. “Let’s go and practice your free throws.”
Rose slipped under his arm, giving Juniper a sympathetic look backward. Juniper’s shoulders tensed. Her stomach began to hurt.
Their dad was the tallest person Juniper had ever seen in person. He was the reason she was currently on track to be recruited into the circus. Step right up and see the tallest girl in the world!
He bent over her desk to peer at the book she had open. He picked it up and flipped it to read the cover. “Physics?” he said “You reading this just for fun?”
“I checked it out from the library,” Juniper said.
She felt weirdly embarrassed and placed her hand over the cover as if to hide a secret. When she’d seen the book sitting in the science section, it was like she couldn’t help but take it home. She’d wanted to know all of the secrets in those pages.
“How’d you get into physics? Rose was never into physics,” her dad said. He shook his head as if he didn’t understand. Rose had received a full-ride college scholarship for basketball, of course. She was thinking of studying to be a teacher, though.
“Let’s go shoot some hoops, Junebug,” he boomed. He grabbed the physics book and threw it onto the bed like it was nothing.
Juniper didn’t want to practice her free throws. The humiliation of the previous game washed over her. Veronica’s nasty words—double choke— went through her mind. But she stood, grabbed a sweatshirt, and began to pull on her high tops.
She remembered Rose telling her that she was tough. She wasn’t so sure.
Her dad walked out, whistling. At least he wasn’t frustrated with her anymore.
Juniper thumped down the stairs in huge shoes that could have belonged to clown. Her mother, a music teacher, was in the living room playing the piano. With her black hair pulled up into a bun and her face free from make-up, her mom looked like a teenager. She was beautiful.
At twelve, Juniper already towered over her mother. Why did she have to get the super-tall gene?
Juniper sat down on the bench next to her mom. She began to play the lower notes. The harmony of the music between them came to life. Juniper’s heart seemed to beat with the rhythm of the notes as she played the piano keys. She and her mother’s long fingers moved together over the keyboard, fast and lively.
Juniper had taken lessons from her mom ever since she’d been able to reach the keys. She’d loved every minute of it.
The music shifted with the crescendo and leaped out of the piano. When they came to the end of the song, they smiled at each other. Juniper felt the softness of her mom ease something inside of her.
“You’re my favorite piano partner,” her mom said.
At the piano, Juniper suddenly realized that, sitting down, she and her mother were the same height. A normal height.
She thought about that. Maybe it was the main reason she loved playing the piano so much. On the court, Juniper always stood out with her long giraffe legs and bony elbows and knees.
Too soon, her dad was standing behind her. “C’mon kid,” he said. “Lets go shoot.”
He looked so earnest and excited that Juniper instantly stood up and followed him out to the driveway. He’d lined up drills for her to do. She did them with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
Shuffle, turn, catch, shoot. Shuffle, turn, catch, shoot. Shuffle, turn, catch, shoot …
Over and over they practiced the drills until sweat dripped off of Juniper’s nose. She bent over and grabbed her knees, her legs shaking. She told herself that all of the practice would make a difference. She told herself that she was steadily improving.
“You’re really working hard out here, Junebug,” her dad said. He patted her on the back.
“You’re so lucky to be as tall as you are.” He passed her the ball, and it slapped into her wide palms. “I was so short when I was your age. That’s why Uncle Matt still calls me Pee-Wee.”
They both laughed at this. Juniper’s dad was definitely not a pee-wee.
Juniper took a jump shot. The ball swished in.
She felt a mixture of feelings. There was a lightness from his compliment. There was also a heavy feeling of sadness for her dad.
She’d knew that he hadn’t been able to play much basketball when he was young. He’d been short until almost college, and by then it was too late. She knew he put a lot of pressure on her because she was lucky to be tall when it mattered.
Underneath all of these feelings, equations and numbers floated through her mind like the notes on the piano. They made sense to her in an ordered, logical way. They were simple. To Juniper, basketball was chaos—no matter how hard she practiced, she felt she could never predict exactly what was going to happen in a game.
Juniper placed her hands precisely on the ball. It was the exact hand placement her dad had shown her many times to shoot straight and true.
She imagined herself all alone under the hoop. Mila had just passed her the ball. She had lined her body up to put the ball into the basket.
She lifted her right arm up and shot the ball. It flew through the air, banked off the backboard, and swished through the net. It made that lovely whisper of a sound.
“Nice shot, Juney!” her dad shouted.
The pride in his voice made her feel like she could accomplish anything.
There was no crowd though.
It was just Juniper and her dad in the driveway. Juniper was afraid that Veronica was right. She was a choker. And in a real game, probably, she would likely just choke again.
Juniper didn’t want to admit to herself that the beautiful shot still felt forced. It felt, somehow, like work.
She thought about basketball and wondered if she’d ever feel at ease playing the game.
Basketball had never come natural to her, Juniper began to realize. Not like it seemed to for her dad or her sister. Not like the beautiful symmetry of the equations that were floating through her mind. Not like the musical notes that sang to her. The notes that told her to go back inside to the piano and play and play and play.